With the "loose ball bearing racquet". The kinetic? Oversized, extra long racquet. With it I've been playing very well. Using a double continental grip and trying to serve kind of like McEnroe. Beat Ron something 6-0, 6-3, 4-2. Previously I've always won but our matches have been much closer. He gets everything back. And today beat Drew the 6'8" high schooler, 6-3, 6-1. We had played 4 times previously and he won each time, including 6-1. 6-0, 6-0 the previous time. So I'm playing really well now. People are having a really hard time breaking my serve. Drew did once in almost 3 sets. Ron the same I think. Feel like my forehand is nothing. But it's working. Lots of slice. Lots of drop shots. Along with hitting it flat. Controlling the horizontal really well. And my agility is improving. Using elliptical with a weighted pack.

Worried my arm is going to start hurting. Feel the slightest hint of the beginning of that. Not sure if it's the racquet or the elliptical plus tennis plus hitting a one hand forehand exclusively for a while. Or a bit of all three... May stop using arms on elliptical for a while.

Tried to keep my elbow really straight and it was working... until I played two days in a row. Suddenly on day two very bad golfer's elbow. And arm still hurting a few days later. Something like pushing and rubbing against my head has actually caused very slight elbow "pain" for a few months I guess. But arm has been fine with tennis lately until playing two days in a row. 

Worried I'm working my way to needing surgery. Next I play going to try a eastern backhand grip and a cricket style pitching motion. This way my hand will never be behind my elbow, which hopefully should stop any additional elbow problems. 

It had seemed like keeping my arm straight with a continental grip was going to work very well but I guess not. Maybe I need six months off. But going to try this cricket style thing first......

I added two strips of duct tape from 4 to 8 along the top of my stretch 6.1 prostaff and my tennis elbow lessened (it was not much to begin with, but pretty much altogether gone now). I had been afraid of doing such a thing because it makes the racquet relatively headheavy and that is supposed to cause tennis elbow. Wrong.

A heavier racquet reduces tennis elbow and it's a far more important factor than head light vs head heavy. Adding mass always reduces tennis elbow no matter if it's all put at the very top of the racquet. Head light vs head heavy only matters if you are talking about two equal weight racquets (and I guess with equal stiffness).

Realizing this makes me reconsider the extender ripstick, (as does buying another stretch 6.1 prostaff that is shorter than my current 27 and 5/8 as opposed to 27 and 7/8ths).

I've ordered a postal scale. I want to weight all my racquets to a bare minimum of 14 ounces. Probably will go a bit heavier than that.So the ripstick is only 9 ounces unweighted. I already added nails/cotton in the handle.

The extra weight on the hoop really helps the serve. Makes it harder to get around on balls hit with pace. Though not many people put so much pace and I already just chip serves back and in general hit a lot of slices.

I beat the #2 ranked player 6-4, 4-6 (9-7) (Jake E) this week. I served and volleyed a lot and sliced a lot. Previously he beat me 6-0, 6-2. In that match I tried to hit tons of topspin throughout and hit tons of erros. In this match I still hit a ton of bad errors. Net game could be a lot better. And he kept chipping short balls barely over the net. I should have managed better with them. I expect I'll beat him worse in the future. Also my serve wasn't very good. Was trying to hit the first flat/slice, no topspin and first serve percentage was maybe 20%. Need to hit topspin on all serves.

Barring injury I should be ranked one in this league soon. Up to 5 now. It put me in a good mood beating this guy after doing so bad last time. Discounting injury and my first match in a decade, I've only lost to one guy (that I didn't come back and beat later) in 4 or 5 months. That would be the top ranked player and I wasn't using my stretch 6.1 against him. Was using the Prince Graphite Classic Longbody unweighted. And I didn't have enough on the serve. Also I wasn't rushing the net much. (Hadn't started weighted elliptical workouts.)

Want to try to play Chameleons on my dulcimer. Caught some kind of sickness. Sore throat, coughing, etc. Haven't had this sort of thing in many, many years. J is much sicker, which is worrisome being almost 8 months pregnant. Reading a good book, Arawn trilogy. Plot is the usual crap but started out with a very detailed world and more 3d characters.

And so I won 6-3, 6-0 tonight against Art R. Little surprised it was that close but took some time to get used to some very fast balls I hadn't played with before on top of the fast indoor court. And then won the last 9 games.

Despite natural gut at 50 my tennis elbow flared very slightly and think that's because I was bending my elbow too much on my serve. I didn't hit a decent one handed backhand the entire match but this guy wasn't good enough for it to matter. Thinking a ball machine isn't going to be enough to ever hit a good OHBH. Need someone to just hit with. But on these indoor courts slice works really well. And I can even hit a wimpy flat OHBH with my serve grip I guess...

All the running I do (only 30 minutes twice a week lately) also really helps my game. No doubt of that.

Won my tennis match today 6-0, 7-6. First time with the new grips (backhand and forehand the same with huge topspin). My forehand was awesome. My backhand was horrendous. I told him he should hit to my backhand in the second set, which he did. It was so bad I'm thinking of going back to the drawing board/changing my grip to something not quite so extreme.

Today was my first match in almost a month (they have a layoff before the indoor season starts). My elbow didn't hurt thankfully. This was with my Prince Graphite Classic Longbody (28inches and 100 square inches) with natural gut strung at 50, but possibly starting to loosen? Didn't check to see today. Ball felt very good coming off of it. Forehand was huge. Court next was some good doubles and they commented a few times to each other about it. (I hit a few ROS winners that were harder than anything Roddick or Sampras did at that exhibition recently.)

Think it was my 7th match in this league. Have won all except the very first.

Serve was good today. Noticed I started throwing the ball ridiculously high and that was actually working. Had a more consistent toss... Also keeping my elbow pretty straight on the serve. For me that seems to be important.

Previously tried a gamma polyester at 31 (in my prostaff 6.0 85) and my elbow started getting tender. So, no polyester. Probably no Ashaway Crossfire either, though it's on its way.

Today I played a german guy getting a PhD in something, previously played a guy from China getting a PhD in Physical Education... also two guys who are engineers and another who's a sociology professor, finally some high ranking guy at the FBI.

Started playing tennis again. Hadn't played in over 10 years. My one racquet says it was last strung in 2001 (wilson prostaff.) Joined a league. Played my matches with a ripstick extender 800 (great name).

First played Daniel B (slightly catty effeminate sociology professor in 30's) and lost 6-2 6-2. Hit a ton of errors playing indoors on a super fast court. Understandable to lose when first playing in over ten years. He was a dinker though. Pretty sure I'd destroy him now.

Then played Art R (nice guy, environmental scientist in 20's). Overweight fellow who hit a lot of unforced errors. We played with brand new balls that were pretty dead straight out of the can, I guess because the can had been left in a hot car for a week or so. (Penn's). That helped me on the unforced errors. Think I won maybe 6-4 6-2.

Then Chi C. (Asian FBI guy in his 50's). Very much a dinker who very rarely hit unforced errors except he couldn't handle my serve. I forfeited 6-4 6-5 as I pulled a leg muscle. I was up 5-3 in the second set when injured. Played impressive at times but hit too many unforced errors. If I had just hit easy slices and ran him, think could have easily won as he wasn't really very mobile. Played at local college courts. Saw Kenny K who I played with a bit 25 years ago. He's been constantly playing ever since. Still only average.

Took a week off and bought a ball machine. Then played Travis S (early 20's engineer). Liked this guy's game, the least dinky of the bunch. We played indoors and I basically blew him off the court. 2-6, 6-2, 6-2. He did strain a neck muscle and that hurt his serve. But when his serve was good it wasn't any big deal anyway. My serve was bad the first set and then awesome the last two. Virtually no double faults. I'd guess hitting 120's... 130's ?? Maybe ten aces. Though my placement needs work. I was hitting huge forehands. I used the ball machine once or twice before this. I think it very quickly is helping me.

Then Buddy M (athletic guy in his 50's). This guy had not much of a game (dinker). Also showed up with one tennis ball in pants and no shirt, lol. But he could run. And actually his serve was really good in the second set (had a weird backwards spin (not an american twist)). I won 6-1 7-5. Had a weird meltdown in the second set where I lost 5 games in a row. Then won like the last 16 points straight almost. Except for those 5 games, just destroyed this guy.

Then Yang S (an athletic PE major). This guy really took a rip at the ball. Tried to put a lot of top spin on it. Kind of a nice serve. Good movement, spin, consistent, although actually quite easy to return. And his ground strokes came nice and slow also really. I had tennis elbow this time. Started to feel the beginnings of it against Buddy, was pretty bad this time. Could barely lift a water bottle to drink in between games with my right hand. So I did a lot of dinking. Lots of slicing. Though not really an issue on the backhand side. Also the balls were incredibly fast (wilson titaniums) so was trying to be careful. He actually hit to my two handed backhand a lot. Which normally would be smart as my forehand is huge. Don't think he realized I was having trouble even lifting my arm. And I did hit the topspin forehand hard here and there. Ultimately he hit a lot of unforced errors. I blasted too many winners to say I dinked him to death, but I was kind of dinky. Prefer to think I mixed things up and he couldn't get a rhythm. 6-4 6-1.

Should take a rest now cause of my arm. Actually it's both my shoulder and my elbow. Trying to dampen vibrations by adding weight in the neck area via duct tape. Against Yang S was the first time I tried it. Not sure if it didn't work or my arm was already so softened up from hitting 200 serves plus the ball machine the day before with the new racquet I bought (Prince Graphite Classic Longbody). Read a lot about racquets/tennis elbow. I guess I need a heavy racket where all the weight isn't just out in the head. So attempted to modify racquets as they're all made too light. Really want a 14 ounce racket. Added about 3 ounces of tape to the ripstick in the neck against Yang (bringing it up to 12 ounces). Previously had only added weight in the head where it wasn't really dampening. Just putting in in the neck really gives me all the power I need. Added a bit more tape just above the two hand grip. And  added cotton balls and nails inside the handle (about 2 ounces) worth. This brings it up to about 14 ounces. Now will rest up a bit. And see if I can get past this....